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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Abominable SkoalMan

At a past job, one of my coworkers was THE most disgusting man on earth for many reasons, the most glaring of which was his chewing tobacco habit and all the delightful things that came with it. For some reason, the company we worked for didn’t opt for a tobacco-free workplace, and this individual took full advantage. He carried his spit cup all over the office (though sometimes leaving it in the conference room for me to find later) and would regularly stop mid-sentence to clumsily dribble tobacco juice into it then wipe the remnants out of his scraggly goatee with his sleeve.

His excessive tobacco use gave him problems in the bathroom as well. I’ll spare you the details, even though not a day went by that I was spared the gory details by the poor souls who had to share the one-stall men’s bathroom with him. I’ll just say that with my desk sitting in the lobby only a few feet away from the paper-thin wall of the bathroom, I didn’t even need the delayed commentary of white-faced coworkers to know that terrible things were happening each time he entered.

Then one day he took to bringing the newspaper in to keep him company during his pleasure-hour in the bathroom, and it became my duty to keep track of whether or not the paper had made the daily trip yet or not. I was questioned before anyone would get within 5 feet of the coffee table where it was stored.

Fortunately I didn’t have EXCESSIVE contact with him (he wasn’t my boss or anything), but unfortunately my computer was the only one in the office with certain software on it. Sometimes he’d stand right behind me while dictating directions, holding and spitting into his cup right above my ear. On one of these occasions, he pointed to something on the monitor and there was sticky brown tobacco spit ON THE BACK OF HIS HAND. He noticed it, too, said something like, “ohhh, lookie there”, then licked the fingers on his other hand and rubbed the stain away right in front of my face.

But the worst day of all was when he spit on MY hand.

I was showing him how to work the copy machine for the thousandth time. I situated the document on the glass plate and just when I reached across him with my left hand to press the “start” button, he opened his mouth to ask a question. My hand was drenched. I stared at it in horror. Someone was screaming. Was it me? Was I screaming? No….no, it was the sound of every molecule in my brain recoiling just before my skin turned to maggots. I left him there to run into the bathroom and scour my hand raw. Fingernails were employed.

So. In conclusion, here are some words of advice to anyone who chews tobacco: You are revolting. Everyone hates you.